• March 13th, 2012 •

Lauren and I took a gardening class last week at Goin’ Native. My girlfriend, Marianne Taylor owns the company and is a “dirt therapist”. She holds classes on gardening and educates people about organic produce and its benefits. She is also a firm believer that gardening will relax you and relieve stress. I am a strong believer as well. The class we took was about gardening with succulents. Succulents are not in the cactus family, as many people think. They are beautiful, pretty easy to grow, and come in a variety of colors and sizes.

On a side note…Lauren is my husband’s granddaughter. I say this because I am not really old enough to be the grandmother of a 19 year old. I think of Lauren as my much younger sister or a daughter, this way I don’t have to think about the fact that I am technically old enough to have a grandchild.

This is a finished planter that Marianne created. Mine does not look like this yet. They take a while to grow in and mature. This is actually a wooden palette that she took and painted. They can be used to cover a wall, which is my plan on my balcony, or as room dividers inside or out.

If you are lucky enough to live in Southern California, you definitely need to check out Goin’ Native. The classes are not only educational, but relaxing and the best way to spend a few hours. Now, back to our project…

When we arrived, we got to choose a pallet to start planting in. This is ours without any plants. It stood about 4′ high by about 3′ wide. I will be sharing my balcony project with you in a later post. Being that I live in the city, in a condo no less, it gives me fewer options when it comes to gardening. This project is perfect because I plan to put it against a wall. One note if you are doing this project at home; once planted, they are heavy and need to be kept upright. Keep this in mind when you are working on the project. Have help to move it if you are working on it in a different location. We will move ours by truck when the balcony is finished.

Once we chose our “planter”, we got to choose plants. Marianne had a large variety of succulents to choose from. We worked on one together and had a great time choosing and designing our creation.

It took about 5 or 6 larger succulents, some smaller filler succulents, and 1 or 2 hanging plants per row. We had three rows to plant, so once we started gathering our individual potted succulents, we started planning where we wanted to put them in the pallet.

Once we had a game plan, we lined the rows with moss and dirt and then created our masterpiece! It was not only a great way to spend a day with family, but it is always fun to plant and create something beautiful. The nice thing about gardening with succulents, is that they are easy to grow and their main needs are:

* mostly shady area to thrive in

* partial sun

* sparse water, which makes them great for drought tolerant areas.

Even if you don’t have a green thumb, succulents are pretty easy to grow and some flower as well.